Asheville, North Carolina News

Asheville Tourists Shut Out Hot Rods

ASHEVILLE, NC – The Asheville Tourists and Hot Rods waited over two hours past the scheduled first pitch to begin game one of their series, but completed nine innings just before midnight, with Asheville blanking Bowling Green 7-0. Jonnathan Aristil threw the longest outing of his career, going 6.2 shutout innings to earn his second victory of the season.

Asheville plated a run in their first turn at bat and never looked back, getting to Bowling Green starter Frank De Los Santos early and often. Scott Robinson led off the bottom of the first with a single up the middle and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Delta Cleary hit a routine ground ball to shortstop, but Tim Beckham threw it away, allowing Robinson to score from second. De Los Santos escaped the first with the deficit 1-0, but it grew larger from there.

The Tourists rallied for four runs in the bottom of the third inning as David Christensen led off and reached on a fielding error by first baseman Mike Sheridan. Christensen stole second base and Thomas Field hit a weak ground ball to the third base side of the pitcher’s mound that fell for an infield hit. With runners on the corners, Scott Robinson smoked a line drive over second baseman Robi Estraded that fell in shallow right-center and rolled all the way to the wall. Christensen scored from third and Field came all the way around from first to score easily to make it 3-0 Asheville. Robinson advanced to third on a groundout, then came in to score on a wild pitch to make it 4-0. With the bases empty and one out, Jordan Pacheco singled through the hole into right field, and Mike Zuanich drilled a double off the right-field wall, plating Pacheco to make it 5-0 Tourists.

Aristil struck out six and walked just one in his 6.2 shutout frames, handing the ball to the bullpen in the seventh. Alan DeRatt worked out of a jam in the seventh, coming in with runners on first and second and two outs, and struck out the only batter he faced. Shane Lindsay, with the Tourists on a rehab assignment, worked a 1-2-3 eighth, and Isaiah Froneberger and Adam Jorgenson combined for a perfect ninth to close out the win.

Asheville added insurance runs in the fourth and eighth innings to make the score 7-0, taking their second of seven head-to-head contests from the Hot Rods this year.

The Tourists (23-13) and Hot Rods (20-16) will play game two of this four-game set Wednesday at 7:05 pm. Asheville will send RHP Parker Frazier (8-7, 4.94) to the mound to face off against Hot Rods RHP Nick Barnese (5-4, 2.30). Tickets for Wednesday’s game and all Tourists home games are available by contacting the Tourists box office at (828) 258-0428. You can also listen to all 140 Asheville Tourists games live on 100.7 WRES FM or streaming online at www.theashevilletourists.com.